When the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a national non-profit organization dedicated to sustainable building design and construction, hosts the finals ofits annual Natural Talent Design Competition at the Greenbuild Conference in Phoenix inNovember, future leaders in the green building movement from around the country will be on hand to present their innovative, integrated design ideas implementing learned principles of sustainability and social consciousness.

Among them will be Madison-based Flad Architects. Flad recently took first place at the local level of the Natural Design Competition, hosted in Milwaukee by the Wisconsin Green Building Alliance and Walnut Way Conservation Corp., a resident-led, community development organization serving the neighborhood bound by North Avenue, 12th Street, Fond du Lac Avenue, Walnut Street and 20th Street.

Flad's five team members -- Cody Axness, Leigh Streit, Chitani Ndisale, Jeremy Braunschweig and Jon Rynish -- set out to create design solutions for the North Avenue corridor within the Walnut Way neighborhood according to LEED Green Building Rating System guidelines.

Each team was asked to consider an integrated design approach and address pedestrian safety, stormwater management and sustainable building practices on a 3.8-acre site that would include the following:

• Rehab of a three-story warehouse (36,000 square feet)
• Grocery store / co-op space (20,000-30,000 square feet)
• Restaurant (5,000 square feet)
• Educational and community gather space (24,000 square feet)
• Mixed use / residential space (30,000-40,0000 square feet)
• Community garden / open space (15,000-25,000 square feet)
• Pocket park / neighborhood playground (25,000-35,000 square feet)

Flad's design conquered the development in many facets, but primarily focused on "passive comfort," says Axness, Flad's landscape designer, who has degrees in both environmental design and landscape architecture. Passive comfort, he says, means using strategies that don't require energy to create comfortable interior environments, such as constructing buildings in ways that optimize solar gains in winter and natural ventilation in summer.

Flad tackled the ongoing city-wide issue of stormwater runoff by including cycling bio-filtration swales, constructed wetlands, rain gardens and green roofs.

"Our design approaches the issue of excess runoff as an opportunity to lessen the need for potable city water for non-potable purposes like irrigation and flushing toilets," Axness says.

Although they integrated garden plots into public spaces and included an all-season community greenhouse garden, the team also increased neighborhood density in the form of retail, restaurants and other commercial services, which Axness says contributes to a more walkable neighborhood and reduction in car use.

"Another area of emphasis was improving community connections -- giving social meaning to sustainability," he continues. "An example of this was creating a pedestrian path and visual link between the existing Walnut Way house and the reuse of the warehouse. Along this path, we placed the community greenhouse, which we envision as a value socially, and sustainably, as it can grow food year-round. This can be a subtle reminder of the work that led up to any sort of redevelopment."

The Flad team won $1,000 for first prize in the local competition. Montgomery Associates and Design Coalition won second place and HGA Architects and Engineers took third. Flad now in the running for the national title in the Natural Talent Design Competition, which offers a top prize of $5,000.